1. 3 Top Magazine Advertising Myths Debunked
Educated Advertising Facts for Business
Advertisers
By Frank Donohue
JerseyMan Magazine Ad Sales Consultant
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2. As an Advertising Sales Consultant for JerseyMan Magazine, I speak to business
owners all the time looking to drive sales and revenue growth during these
tough economic times. Business owners have tough decisions to make as
marketing and advertising budgets shrink. Most seasoned veteran owners
realize that when times get tough, marketing and advertising must continue as
much as financially possible. Less experienced entrepreneurs go to the
marketing budget first when looking to cut spending. Unfortunately, they
usually make this decision to their own peril.
The activity of marketing is the only true profit center in a business. All other
business functions and activities are cost centers. If you don’t believe this, try
this exercise:
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center of it. On the left side of
the line at the top of the page, write the words “Cost Center. On the right side
of the line at the top of the page, write the words “Profit Center” Now, think
of every activity that takes place in your operation and if that activity costs
money to perform, without any opportunity of money going into your cash
register or checking account as a direct result of performing the activity, then
list that activity in the left column under “Cost Center”. Any activities that you
think of that are performed in your business which can directly result in getting
a paying customer to make a purchase, put it in the “Profit Center” column. I
promise you, at the end of the exercise, all the functions in the “Profit Center”
column will fall under the labels of either sales or marketing.
The good news is most business owners I speak to already fundamentally know
this.
The bad news is the biggest objection that I receive from business owners and
marketing managers the most frequently are very troubling.
The most common objection I get from business owners when I approach them
about advertising in our magazine is, “I don’t do any magazine advertising
anymore because everything is online.” This objection forces me to curiously
go online to see exactly what they are doing, and where they are marketing,
that is getting them such incredible results. I want to know what has spurred
them to confidently object to “tried and true, time tested methods of
advertising, like putting a highly compelling ad in a magazine that reaches
their target market with laser guided precision.
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3. Paralysis by Analysis
Every once in a blue moon I will go online and find a business who put up the “I
don’t do magazine advertising” objection, that seems to have a solid,
successful online marketing system in place that appears to be driving business
to the bottom line. But this is the exception.
In most cases, I will find the business has no FaceBook Fan Page (or if they do,
it only has 4 fans- The owners wife, kid, uncle, and best friend) no Twitter
account, Google Maps Location, no Search Engine Optimization strategy in
place, and sometimes, they don’t even have a website.
The only reasons I can think of, that these businesses would have such a poor
online presence, but think that magazine advertising is obsolete, is because
either they don’t know enough about online marketing to realize that whatever
little time, effort and money they invested to getting online didn’t amount to a
hill of beans, or they are just so overwhelmed by information overload and all
the advertising options available these days, that they are truly paralyzed with
confusion. I believe that the latter reason is probably the case more of the
time than the former.
As a result of this confusion, and my frustration with the false myths that exist
about magazine advertising, I decided to write this report to set the record
straight. I want business owners to have the facts so they can make educated
and informed decisions to help them make smart advertising and marketing
decisions that will help them get the biggest bang for their advertising dollars.
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4. The Facts about Magazine Advertising
After doing some extensive research to help “De-Bunk” the popular myths
about magazine advertising, I came across an unbiased, independent study that
was conducted entitled “Ad Impact, What You Don’t Know Could Hurt Your
Bottom Line”. This study made several interesting points that I hope will once
and for all put the most popular magazine advertising myths to bed once and
for all. The full report on this study is available for download at
http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/3DDEC92DC87F47B792CA8490934803F1/myt
hbusters-ad-impact-09.pdf
Here are the myths and the facts based on the study:
Myth #1 “No one reads Magazines. Especially younger consumers
Fact- Magazine usage has grown over a 5 year period (2005-2009) at a
higher rate than all other media except the web.
Fact- The reality is readership for an adult age 18-34 continues to be
strong. The top 25 magazines outperform the top 25 primetime TV
programs in all major demographics including adults 18-34 and teens.
Myth #2 “Cutting my magazine budget won’t compromise ad results
Fact- Magazines perform best through the purchase funnel, especially in
brand favorability and purchase intent.
Fact- Magazines are the most cost effective medium throughout the
purchase funnel, when looking at two measures of ROI
Fact- Magazines most consistently generate a low cost per impact
Fact- For “Cost per Person”, the most efficient media combination always
includes magazines.
Myth #3 “Magazines aren’t keeping pace in the digital age”
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5. Fact- Magazines rank #1 at influencing consumers to start a search online –
higher than newer media options including TV/Broadcast, Newspapers,
Face-to-Face, TV/Cable, Radio, Direct Mail, E-mail ads, Internet ads, and
Online Communities.
Fact- Magazines best complement the web in reaching social networkers
Fact- Magazines digital initiatives have increased in double digits every year
since 2006.
Conclusions:
As the data clearly shows in the study, magazine advertising is not only still
a good solid option for businesses to increase sales and brand awareness,
even during the digital age, it is actually one of the best options. The data
of this study also clearly shows that when magazine advertising is used in
conjunction with a strong internet marketing campaign, a huge competitive
edge can often be realized by savvy, educated business marketers. Please
read the full report at
http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/3DDEC92DC87F47B792CA8490934803F1/
mythbusters-ad-impact-09.pdf
If you have any questions about advertising options, or how to create a
online/offline marketing strategy, please feel free call or email your
JerseyMan Magazine Sales Consultant, or you can reach me at
frank.jerseymanmag@gmail.com
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